


Nellis Drabbles

by Grimmy88



Category: Left 4 Dead 2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 17:05:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grimmy88/pseuds/Grimmy88





	Nellis Drabbles

            He came in to a front room devoid of his lover, which was a very strange occurrence. Usually, when Nick was in town, he had a certain regimen to his day. He’d wake up before Ellis in order to time his exercise just right so that they could share breakfast together. Then Ellis would leave for work and, well, to be honest he couldn’t attest to what the conman did during the hours he was away.

            They always had things like food and toothpaste and batteries though, so he was sure Nick took those mundane tasks upon himself. And that was nice, even if it did make the southerner a little ashamed to not only not make the most money but also to do less shopping and cleaning.

            Nevertheless, whatever he did on his ‘days off’ Nick was always in his leather chair, reading or on his laptop when the mechanic came home.

            Ellis was almost tempted to pull out his cell phone when he noticed, after two steps, that the gambler was at the kitchen table, hand scribbling on a sheet before him, head lowered and hearing muffled by the overly large headphones the hick had picked out for himself two weeks ago.

            They looked a little strange on Nick, of course, but Ellis wasn’t going to tell him that; actually Ellis wasn’t going to say anything in fear of startling the older man out of whatever reverie to which he had currently succumb.

            So he crossed to the fridge and took out a water bottle while he waited.

            Nick didn’t look up at the sounds of the fridge closing so Ellis looked down. Surrounding the chosen workspace were several sheets of paper, all with neat, printed words and varying signatures where necessary.

            Some were written with sprawling, pretty cursive, others ineligible, most flamboyant, others decorative only in necessity.

            None of them were Nick’s own, name or font.

            This was a skill Ellis knew he possessed, a skill that was dangerous and illegal, but that’s all he knew. Since arguing about something he didn’t know with someone who was quite schooled in it never seemed like a fun way to pass the time to the Georgia native he never brought it up.

            Today wasn’t going to be any different.

            Mostly that was because he didn’t want to start a fight that could end up with him sleeping in a room separate from his lover. Partly, however, was the fact that the sheet he was currently working on wasn’t covered in blocky print, it was covered in erratic lines delivered by a sketching pencil.

            Nick chose that second, the one where Ellis had chosen to lean forward onto his toes to get a better look, to lift his head. The headphones came off next and his hair hung softly by and around his ears, free of the conman’s normal amount of used product.

            Meaning he probably hadn’t gone too far today.

            “Whatchya doin’?” Ellis asked, at a loss of what else to do with an intense green gaze zeroed in on his face.

            “Signing things,” Nick said with a dismissive wave of his hand. The grey-streaked sheet hissed across the table as the gambler’s arm covered over it and mapped it back from sight.

            “I meant on that one,” Ellis corrected with a point of his nose.

            “It’s nothing.”

            “So then I-kin see it?”

            Nick’s eyes moved quickly behind the cover of his blinking from Ellis’ face to the table. Then, with the decision seemingly made, he stood up and gathered the scattered belongings so that he could push the hick’s Ipod back towards him while simultaneously releasing the gray-grained sheet into his vision.

            The sketches were of people, or rather, of their features because only a few faces had even been filled.

            “I didn’t know you could draw,” Ellis said.

            The northerner had crossed back into the kitchen where the clicking of plates and pans accompanied his voice. “That’s probably because I’m not very good at it.”

            Truth be told the sketches weren’t amazing works or anything but there was definite skill there and that was apparent even to Ellis who had relied on drawings of stick figures to get him through mandatory art classes back in school.

            So he said as much: “I think they’re pretty good.” And then he let the paper be taken from his hands.

            “It’s just something that helped fake signatures.”

            “Didjya ever draw me?”

            “Once.”

            “Kin-I see?”

            “No.”

            “Aw, c’mon.”

            Slit-small eyes held his face, probing and sharp, before taking back their normal shape to take in the page that Nick turned over slowly with two of his fingers.

            Ellis’ face rested on that side, unattended by any lesser sketches or doodles or words. In fact it seemed as if the older man had gone to lengths to ensure that the resting pad of his fingers hadn’t smeared any lines during the process.

            And it looked like him; the same eyes, his mouth, the scar on his nose and the dent in his chin. He was smiling in it, wide and white, eyes scrunched and lined but young and glinting. Although Ellis wasn’t too sure how somebody could draw glinting eyes with only a #2 pencil.

            But the more he stared the more he got over how surprisingly good the conman was and the more he realized there was just something off about the whole thing. Maybe it was his hair and the way it whisked back and curled in perfect aesthetically appealing ways more so than his true hair had ever done. Maybe it was the sharpness of his eyebrows. Maybe it was the force behind his jaw. Maybe it was the subtle shading that contrasted with the strong lines Nick had used to create it, had used to likewise create the strong shapes behind and within his visage and yet had also used those same lines, renewed and timid, to mimic the variations of skin tone.

            And so all he could decide was that it looked like him, but it also didn’t.

            “Is that what I look like?” Because he guessed he could always be bias.

            The other survivor scoured his eyes over it. “No, it’s not what you look like. It’s what you are.”

            “What’s that mean?”

            The head beside him shook. “I don’t know. Forget it.” And then Nick stacked it, along with his other test pages, and dropped them into the recycling bin.

            And later that night, under the guise of thirst, Ellis was just glad the bin was clean and dry as he folded the sheet into his wallet.

            And even later, the next day, he came back from the art supplies shop with a bundle of sketchpads because, even after having a worker explain them to him, he still couldn’t make out which was the best.

            …The same went for the pile of sketch pencils in his other hand.

 

*          *          *

 

            Ellis used the balls of his feet, first pivot point to the last and then the steadying flex of the muscles in his calf to ride out the weak, back-handed push in mimicry of a pendulum, refocusing that energy and playful malevolence back towards his target.

            The arched curve of Nick’s back failed to concede when its owner rolled down onto his side, both guided and maneuvered there by the southerner’s weight.

            He stayed curved because he liked to have his legs poised and ready to grapple. He liked to be poised to grapple because it was the only time he could even the playing field and Ellis knew it.

            Just like he knew that he was too quick, and apparently, too ‘squirmy’ for the older man to get a proper hold on him. Really, though, he was just much better at this having had cousins, friends, and his friend’s older brothers whom all had considered wrestling a pastime.

            So when one leg shifted up, slow, and its matching arm came out he decided to bypass the former for the sake of battling with the latter.

            That latter tangoed between Ellis’ hands, finally settling within the dominant one, dragging that grasp away. It served as the distraction needed to allow his body to shift thus granting his trapped arm the freedom it required to spring to the fight, contending with Ellis’ pull.

            The hick moved with the sudden twisting motion, allowing his legs to match up against the older man’s arms.

            It wasn’t until he had both biceps pinned with his front half trying desperately to avoid the legs attempting to curl around his neck that he realized he had straddled Nick’s face in the process.

            “So,” Nick said then, “can you get these shorts off without kicking me in the head?”

 

*          *          *

 

            “You don’t want to bet money? Fine. Rules are simple: I pick what I get if my team wins and you pick what you want if yours wins.” Nick leaned into the couch cushions, arms hovered in opposite directions across the back, crowding out the darker color with the white of his jersey. Ellis still hadn’t taken his eyes off it.

            Granted, the thing was a little old, but the White Sox logo was dark and outlined against all that bright and as long as it was still there that was all the importance he needed.

            Ellis, who was decked head to toe in Braves gear—though where the fuck he got those socks was beyond the ex-con—was still staring at the thing, eyes squinting as if in offense.

            “Where’djya get that?”

            “Long time ago,” Nick explained. “I can’t like sports?”

            “Didn’t say ya couldn’t, didn’t think ya cared is all.”

            “I played baseball just like every other kid.”

            Ellis grinned at that. “Little Nicky playin’ Little League? I don’t think I-kin imagine it. What position?”

            “Pitcher.”

            “Really?”

            “Explains why my elbow sounds like a cement mixer when I do pushups, doesn’t it?” he redirected his eyes to the television that displayed his white clad player armed with his bat over home plate.

            “I was shortstop,” Ellis announced after the third foul ball.

            “Grand.”

            “Were ya good?”

            “Game’s on.”

            The grin on his companion’s face stretched and strengthened, streaming his features into joy lines. “I’mma take that as a no, which makes sense seein’ how yer-a Sox fan.”

            “I could’ve been a Cubs fan.”

            “Any Chicago team sucks.”

            Nick dropped his eyes back down. “Like the Bulls?”

            “Livin’ in those old glory days, Nick? well, then again yer old enough’ta remember ‘em clearly, right?”

            There was a hit then, vibrant on the screen, as exciting as the hissing roar of the fans, the call of the umpire and they all flashed by in the instant Nick chose to grab his young lover into a headlock that would, hopefully, silence him for the rest of the game.

            As for the rest of the night? Well, he figured he could always get their money’s worth out of those socks.

 

*          *          *

 

            With a temperature of 102, repeated fiascos of chills and then sweats, and the uncanny ability to projectile vomit Gatorade, Ellis was decidedly sick.

            Nick was decidedly pissed.

            The mechanic wasn’t sure if that was because he was home during the hours he’d normally spend working or the aforementioned speed puking. Okay, yeah, he was sure, but that didn’t mean it was fair for him to be pissed. It wasn’t like Ellis had planned on getting sick.

            And he really, really hoped Nick wouldn’t catch it so that had to count for something.

            Although, even if he did catch it he’d probably just sleep it off, fitful but regenerative. At least that’s what he’d done that last time he’d gotten sick. He’d even slept through dining on Ellis’ chicken noodle soup (which he had, in fact, burned himself making).

            That was the difference between them, though. Nick had been used to handling things like that alone. Ellis had been used to his mother handling it. In fact most of his sick days had included lying in bed with a controller in his hands, gaming off his sickness while she delivered food and medicine.

            Now, sure, he’d had medicine given to him, but Nick spent most of the day on his laptop, cursing and tapping. Occasionally he’d bring Ellis a glass of juice or water brimming with ice the way he’d like it or a cool rag for his forehead, but the redneck had had to manage making his own lunch.

            It wasn’t until later, when the outside world shadowed, that the laptop clicked shut. And Ellis must have dozed after that because when he opened his eyes his lover was settling a bowl of soup on the coffee table in front of him with the tiniest of clicks.

            Ellis smiled at him. “Wanna watch a movie?”

            “So you can fall asleep on me and get me sick?” Nick tried to demand but he was already sitting down and turning the television back on.

            The southerner let their legs touch as he ate.

            “Sorry you’re sick,” Nick said once it was clear Ellis was going to be able to keep the small amount of food inside him for once. “But from what I read you’ll be fine in a day or so.”

            Ellis leaned against him.

            “Said to just keep giving you stuff to drink and easy food. Do you want another rag?”

            “I’m okay,” Ellis informed him, wondering how much of that cussing had been shed over his illness and how much had been shed over Nick’s realization that he possessed no knowledge on the skill of nurture.

            “Ellis.”

            “Yeah?”

            “If you turn and try to take a chunk out of me I’m blowing your head off.”

            “That’s sweet, Nick.”


End file.
